Improvement in rocking attachments to chairs



P. c. INGE RSOLL. ROCKING ATTACHMENTS T07 CHAIRS.

Patented Aug. 15, 1876..

N. PEIRS, FHOTD-LITHOGRAPHER', WASHINGTON. D. G.

PLATT O. I NGERSOLL, OF GREEN POINT, BROOKLYN, NEW YORK.

IMPROVEMENT IN ROCKI NG ATTACHMENTS TO CHAIRS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 181,176, dated August 15, 1876,; application filed June 28, 1876. i

To all whom it may concern Be it known that I, PLATT O. INGERSOLL, of Green Point, in the city of Brooklyn, county of Kings, and State of New York, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Rocking Attachments to Chairs; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description of the same, reference being had to the accompanying drawing, which forms part of this specification.

The object of this invention is to make a chair so that it can either be used in a fixed position and rest firmly on its feetas, for instance, when used at a desk or tableor-be tilted backward in an easy rocking manner,

and thus afford increased facility for the occupants indulging in that popular habit of cantin g or rocking himself on the rear legs of the chair.

The invention consists in a combination, with a chair, of a foot rocker or rockers, applied to the rear legs of the chair, and terminating at their forward ends back of the front legs of the chair. The invention also consists in various peculiarities of construc-. tion of a foot-rocker and brace for the hind legs of a chair, whereby the same may not only be readily applied and attached to a chair, so as to form independent back feet or rockers, but facilities are afiorded for limiting or regulating the backward cant or motion of the chair when rocking or tilting the latter backward on its hind legs, and other advantages are obtained.

A chair having my invention applied may be rocked or tilted backward on its rear legs with much less injury to the carpet or covering on the floor of a room, and with greater security to the occupant against the accidental overturning of the chair in a backward direction, than is attainable by an ordinary chair having no rockers.

Figure 1 represents a view, in perspective, of a chair having my invention in one of its forms or modifications applied, and showing the chair as firmly resting on its front and rear feet. Fig.2 is a vertical section of the chair in the position of being rocked or tilted backward; and Fig. 3 is a side view, upon a larger scale, of an independent foot-rocker applied to the rear leg of a chair.

terminating at their forward ends back of the front legs I). -A single foot-rocker connecting the two rear legs of the chair might be used; but it is preferred to fit or construct each rear leg with a foot-rocker of its own. These footrockers might be made of wood in common with the chair-legs which they fit, or of which they form a part, or they may be made of metal or other suitable material, and be variously secured and fitted to the legs of the chair. Thus they may be constructed to be readily applied to an ordinary chair, not

specially designed to receive them. As represented in the drawing, the foot-rockers B B are somewhat of a shoe form, each having a toe and heel, with a rocking base extending backward from the toe end d, and so that when the chair is at rest on its four feet, it is supported in the rear on the forward or toe portion of the foot-rockers, with the heel ends of the latter raised from the ground. This throws the center of gravity of the occupant of the chair more immediately over, or approximately so, the center of oscillation when rocking or tilting thechair backward. Said foot-rockers B B may be fitted to the legs 0 o by constructing them with sockets e, in which the lower ends of said legs are received and may be secured. The sockets 0 may be made of taper form, internally wider at the bottom, to permit the adjustment of the rockers to legs of different slopes, and wedges may be inserted into the bottom of the sockets, as shown at s s, to assist in securing the adjustment of the rockers. Braces f may also be extended from the toe end of each foot-rocker tothe legs 0 above the rockers, and be secured at their upper ends to said legs, but hooked at their lower ends, and fitted so as to be capable of turning in holes or sockets in the toe ends of the rockers, to provide for the adjustment of the braces to the legs without interfering with the rounds of the chair, and to facilitate the adjustment of the foot-rockers.

2 ISL-1'76.

These braces materially serve to strengthen the foot-rockers, and to reduce or distribute the strain of them upon the legs when tilting the chair backward. The heel ends of the rockers B B are each constructed to act as a stop to arrest the chair from being rocked or tilted unduly back; but such heel end of either rocker I prefer to construct somewhat difl'e'rent from an ordinary stop, by forming it with a socket, g, in which may be inserted a piece of wood, rubber, or any other suitable material, arranged to project below the bottom of said socket, and which will have the effect of softening contact of the stop with the floor, alsokwhich may be shortened or lengthened at pleasure, to regulate or vary the limit of the back tilt of the chair.

P. G; INGERSOLL.

Witnesses:

MICHAEL RYAN, FRED. HAYNES. 

